The claims in
the Wai 262 inquiry also raised a number of distinctive issues relating to
traditional Māori medicine and healing, that is, rongoā Māori. Chapter seven of the Waitangi Tribunal’s
report addresses these issues. In
particular, the Tribunal considers the potential benefits of rongoā Māori
(‘What Rongoā Has to Offer’) and the ways in which the Crown has supported, and
the extent to which it has undermined, rongoā Māori.
The Tribunal
notes that rongoā Māori is based on Māori conceptions of health and well-being,
and the Māori public health system revolved around the concepts of tapu and
noa. Maori traditional healing operated
within that framework. The Tribunal
refers to the work of eminent Maori health specialist, Professor Mason Durie
and suggests that there are five main categories of traditional Maori healing:
- ritenga and karakia - rituals and incantations
- rākau rongoā – plant medicines (though today ‘rongoā’ is used in a more general sense, it can be used to refer to this specific form of healing)
- mirimiri – a form of massage
- water – used in cleansing rituals and other treatments
- minor surgical procedures – such as blood-letting to relieve swelling
Note that the
traditional Māori view of health and healing was that it comprised both
physical and spiritual dimensions. As
the Tribunal says:
In the holistic Māori view of health, outward manifestations of sickness reflect broader environmental, family or spiritual problems. Rākau rongoā are not considered effective on their own. Indeed the most important form of treatment by tohunga was and remains spiritual.
The traditional
healing practices of the tohunga were, however, not able to effectively protect
against the waves of foreign diseases colonial Māori communities encountered.
“In the face of this crisis, the tohunga’s status diminished. Community adherence to tapu around the sick
and the dead – which would have helped check the spread of disease –
accordingly slackened. Some tohunga at
the turn of the century also resorted to confused methods that had no basis in
tradition.” In an effort to address
cases of medical misapplication or fraud, the Government granted the Māori
councils the power to regulate the activities of local tohunga. Calls continued for tohunga to be banned
altogether, and, after the emergence of Rua Kenana’s prophetic movement seemed
to tip the balance in 1906, the Tohunga Suppression Act was passed the
following year.
The Tohunga
Suppression Act 1907 essentially defined three offenses:
- gathering Māori around one by practicing on their superstition or credulity;
- misleading or attempting to mislead any Māori by professing or pretending to possess supernatural powers in the treatment or cure of disease; and
- misleading or attempting to mislead any Māori by professing or pretending to possess supernatural powers in the foretelling of future events.
The Tribunal is
scathing of the Act and the motives underlying it:
Rather than being a genuine attempt to deal with the problems affecting Māori at the time, the Act was an expression of an underlying mind-set that was fundamentally hostile to mātauranga Māori. The Act’s very title sent an aggressive and provocative message about the Government’s view of Māori beliefs. Far from tackling charlatans or dangerous practices, the legislation imposed an effective ban on traditional Māori healing overall. Thus, in our view, the Act was not only unjustified but also racist, in that it defined a core component of Māori culture as wrong and in need of ‘suppression.
The Act failed
to suppress tohunga completely. There
were relatively few convictions under the Act and at the time of the Act’s
repeal in 1962 there were still tohunga openly practicing. It did, however, have the effect of driving
the practice underground. Although, in
recent years, rongoā has received recognition and support from government, its
relatively late engagement with government (compared with other forms of
previously suppressed mātauranga, such as te reo Māori), is, suggests the
Tribunal, a legacy of this legislation.
Importantly, the
Tribunal notes that rongoā could play an important part in addressing the
current crisis in Māori health. The
Tribunal reasons:
- the medicinal properties of rākau rongoā are considerable;
- Māori ideas about the role of te taha wairua (the spiritual dimension) in health remains fundamental;
- expanding rongoā services may draw more Māori into the primary health care system;
- the available evidence suggests growing Māori demand for rongoā services.
The Tribunal
commends the Crown for funding rongoā services but notes that the Crown’s
support for rongoā has been characterised by delays and even regressive steps
such as the curtailing of funding for rākau rongoā. The Tribunal suggests that
this can only be because the Crown is not convinced of the efficacy of rongoā
or that the scepticism reflected in the Tohunga Suppression Act is still
limiting the role of rongoā within the public health framework because the
Government is afraid of being accused of political correctness.
The Tribunal
therefore recommended that the Crown take the following actions “as a matter of
urgency”:
- Recognise that rongoā Māori has significant potential as a weapon in the fight to improve Māori health.
- Incentivise the health system to expand rongoā services.
- Adequately support Te Paepae Matua (the national body that supports and represents tohunga) to play the quality control role that the Crown should not and cannot play itself.
- Begin to gather some hard data about the extent of current Māori use of services and the likely ongoing extent of demand.
Significant
issues relating to Māori health and healing were raised in the context of the
Wai 262 inquiry. As this chapter
demonstrates, many of those issues were quite specific to rongoā, or played out
in a particular way in relation to this field of mātauranga Māori. Yet, this chapter also reflects the broader
concerns raised by the claimants in this inquiry – that is, how to ensure
mātauranga Māori is fully recognised, that it is supported, and that it is
controlled, managed, used, and protected by those who are the kaitiaki.
